Coopers Brewery has grown its beer sales for the 24th year in a row in 2016-17, with its volumes rising to record levels.
The South Australia-based brewer booked 2.9 per cent sales growth to a record 83.8 million litres in its annual results, released this week.
Coopers now holds almost 5 per cent market share in the national beer market, despite slipping sales in the broader beer market.
According to Coopers, the latest figures show Australia's beer sales fell 1.9 per cent during 2016-17.
“This marks 24 consecutive years of growth in beer volumes for a compound annual growth rate of 8.9 per cent,” Coopers managing director Tim Cooper said.
Dr Cooper said sales growth during the year had been built on improved packaged beer sales with NSW leading the sales growth at 6.9 per cent followed by Queensland at 5.5 per cent, Victoria at 3.5 per cent and Western Australia up 1.8 per cent. Sales in its home state of South Australia fell slightly.
Profit before tax of $33.4 million was down 3.5 per cent from $34.6 million in 2015-16, which the company attributed to a result impacted by the final write-down of the goodwill and brand names of Mr Beer (USA), overhead costs associated with the construction of the new maltings plant and redundancy costs arising from a restructure as we reallocate resources to our growing interstate markets.”
Dr Cooper said the new $65 million maltings plant, which will be officially opened at Regency Park, South Australia on November 30, will immediately start to contribute to earnings, with a view to achieving full utilisation of the facility over the next two financial years.
“The maltings will be able to produce about 54,000 tonnes of malt a year, of which Coopers will use a little over 17,000 tonnes,” he said.
